


The Night Before Christmas

by rotrude



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:19:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotrude/pseuds/rotrude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Posted in December as a Glomp Gift for Wolfangeldeath. Sometimes you get your happy endings. Under the snow. And if there's mistletoe it's better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Night Before Christmas

Not that many people can say they fell in love at the ripe age of ten. Or that they never really stopped loving that one person that had made their heart beat mysteriously fast for the first time (while they'd been inflicting their knowledge of the history of Arsenal upon the object of their love, but the age of ten and wisdom rarely mesh well, so you'll forgive Arthur that). And not that many people can claim that their first kiss was their first love. (Fifteen and under the rain, his dark hair plastered to his skull, a drop of rain dangling from the tip of his nose and hitting his upper lip, a history of want and passion born then and there.)

But Arthur can.

Now you'll think this story had an early happy ending. That Arthur went upon his knees as soon as he was of legal age and that he married his love and lived happily ever after.

Now you'll think that Arthur settled down back then, one of those persons other people look down upon with a little condescension. 'He married so young; what a waste. He could have had so much fun. Why didn't he wait?'

And you'd be mistaken.

Arthur had his Romeo and Juliet moment, as most people don't. A hurdle to jump. A spanner thrown in the works of his love. That spanner came in the shape of Merlin's mum, who got the sack and had to move away to get another job, and took Merlin away with her.

They made love the night before Merlin left. All of sixteen and trembling, finding the touch of another's hand to be a little miracle that came with honest pleasure, and bitten off sobs and kisses, hurried ones, deep ones, ones that were a prelude to dying in each other's arms. That night they found a new knowledge of their bodies and what they could do with them, what they could give, what they could take. No hostages, no holds barred, and a kind of touch memory that has never really faded.

Not for Arthur at least.

Not even when life overtook him and the years passed and he never saw Merlin again. Merlin who'd written and phoned and then texted and then dropped off the face of the earth. Merlin who'd gone to uni, and then overseas, and then become the one thing that Arthur wanted and never got.

Because life's like that and they lost touch despite the best of intentions. Because love is all right and good, but you can't tell the person you love to pass up on their chances to get a better life. That uni course, that MA abroad, that job and that income. Because you can't say no to your father and make a mockery of family and duties to drop everything and chase after that feeling, that blessed cherished feeling. Time and distance did the rest and made strangers of Arthur and Merlin.

Though Arthur never loved another.

Naturally, the flesh is weak and Arthur had partners and lovers, sex on the week-ends and on early Sunday mornings. Arthur had his pick of fabulous creatures on his arm to accompany him to a party or function, the best of the best, envied, flattered, alone and never alone.

Yet Arthur's heart never soared, his lips never quirked up and his eyes never smiled the way they had when Arthur was fourteen and fifteen or sixteen.

You might think this story has a sad ending. That life had the better of Arthur.

But then there's a Christmas Eve, specifically a Christmas Eve party that Arthur's sister, Morgana's giving. She invited Arthur as soon as December broke upon them. “You must come. It's Christmas. It wouldn't be Christmas without family.”

“Morgana, I--”

“I won't accept a 'no' for an answer.” 

And so Arthur slams his car door and tramps up the snow-covered drive. He has a present tucked under his arm, a white square box trimmed with pistachio-coloured ribbon. He's leaving foot imprints on the snow behind him and his breath comes out in big puffs of semi-frozen vapour.

“Bloody Morgana,” he says to himself. Because of the biting cold, he hurries up to her door but slows down when a taxi lurches up the stretch of drive in front of him. Someone gets out of it. It's a man, wearing a black duffel-coat, a grey beanie, and shouldering a black and heavy-looking rucksack.

Something, the shape of the man's body, the way he moves, both limber and shambling, puts a spring to Arthur's step.

He catches up with him by Morgana's door, a big mistletoe wreath hanging from her door.

Arthur catches up with Morgana's guest and thinks the world has stopped turning on its axis. Because it's Merlin and Arthur feels like he's sixteen again and touching him for the first time, heart climbing in his throat and having him in a choke-hold.

Merlin's the same and yet different; there's stubble on his upper lip, consistent stubble not the straggling kind he'd shaven off at sixteen just for the hell of it. Merlin's eyes are keener now, his cheekbones sharper, his face more of an assemblage of hard, jagged lines.

But he's Merlin, eyes getting red and fat with unshed tears when they light upon Arthur.

It's Merlin and Arthur can't speak.

“Arthur,” Merlin says.

Dropping the present he's been carrying, Arthur grabs Merlin by the lapel of his coat and fits his lips to Merlin's, rubs them between Merlin's and parts his mouth to kiss him as he used to, all too much tongue and passion and a search for the other that is a search for the self.

It lasts forever, heavy and involved, Merlin kissing him like Arthur is precious.

They kiss forever or until Morgana opens the door and the notes of a cheery Christmas song wash upon them.

You might think this isn't Arthur's happy ending, for what are the odds? What are the odds that a casual meeting will change the course of two peoples' lives once they've drifted apart?

You might think life doesn't work like that and that Merlin and Arthur will part again, despite the surge of feelings overtaking them on that night before Christmas.

But you'd be mistaken, for this is Arthur's happy Christmas ending. 

The End


End file.
